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Becoming emperor has imbued Ling with all the strength and clout that needed to reshape his country into the best version of itself. The legacy he carries is noble, rich and varied and he has all the nation’s resources at his disposal to forge that legacy forward into the future. His responsibilities are great and heavy, and they require his full engagement the way being a lowly prince of a low ranking clan hadn’t. His foolish enemies underestimate him and are easily ignored, but his smart ones know well enough to keep themselves just deep enough in the shadows that Lan Fan’s blade won’t find them. Being crowned emperor is Ling’s sacred duty, his destiny, and the achievement of a lifetime; all accomplished before his twentieth birthday.
It’s also mind numbingly boring.
There are so many meetings and not nearly enough courtesans at any of them. Or food. Food would make it at least palatable. But Lan Fan is probably hiding in the rafters and if he tried to dip out early or sleep she’d stab him just a little.
It’s not that he’s unhappy being emperor. It’s his life’s ambition and he has so many more goals to achieve now that he has imperial weight to put behind it. He was already controversial when he made his bid for the throne official, bringing home the sordid secrets of immortality from the West. He’d told the emperor in secret about exactly what immoral life would cost and he was relieved to discover his predecessor was the kind of man that valued his people above his own life. He was honoured to stand guard at the emperors bedside as he passed from this life. The circumstances of Ling’s successorship were the subject of a significant portion of gossip in and around the capital but gossip did very little to prevent him seceding the throne.
And it wasn’t as if it was always boring. Sometimes there were parties. And courtesans. And meetings where he got to talk a lot and make decrees and stuffy old men whispered amongst themselves when he left the room with a dramatic flourish of his robes. Those kinds of meetings were even more fun than courtesans.
This is not one of those meetings.
Ling is bored and he’s lost track of Lan Fan in the rafters of the room where the clan heads have assembled, so he can’t pull faces at her. The incessant droning about clan caste displacement is a thinly veiled complaint about his protection of the Chang clan and Ling can tune it out for the most part. There is a persistent, aching thrum beginning to build in the back of his skull which is irritating. Maybe he’s dehydrated. He leans a little heavier on his sleeve laden wrist where he’s propped against the arm of his seat. He’s been working on sleeping with his eyes open and is generally making good progress. Maybe he’ll focus on that until Lan Fan notices and sharpens her kunai against a beam over his head and gets wood shavings in his hair. That’s always a fun game. His eyes lose focus and his attention drifts.
And then he felt a sudden pang of pain, like a pulse across his vision and the room swirled. He could feel himself pitching forward and drifting toward the floor.
He righted himself by sheer force of will and stood immediately. His chair scaped behind him and all the incessant bickering stopped.
“I will take all of this under advisement,” he said firmly, which is basically a catch-all for ‘shut the fuck up, I’m leaving’.
Lan Fan dropped to his side silently and knelt at his arm. Less silently, appear her two subordinates Yahui and Jian.
The counsel of Old Annoying Whiners had scoffed and, unimaginatively, whined when Lan Fan had made moves to reduce Ling’s personal guard to a sole retainer. She had wanted to resist their pressure, insisting that if they just ignored them for a time she could instate guards she trusted personally with Ling’s safety but Ling had told her it was a relatively low risk way to get the bastards off their backs. It would score them some points that they could exchange for greater leniency with the Chang’s protections. Besides, Yahui and Jian were both nice enough.
Yahui was too pretty to be a bodyguard, she was distracting enough that it made it difficult to not notice her. She seemed to be a little dumb, just a touch, like there was at least a couple wads of spun cotton between her ears and if you spoke to her for too long her eyes unfocused and her smile went numb around the edges. But Ling wasn’t dead yet so it was probably fine. She had such strong hands, like she could probably crush a man’s skull with them given the opportunity. She mostly used them to rub Ling’s shoulders though. Apparently her clan was trained in some ancient massage art he’d never heard of.
Jian was severe and tall. He frowned a lot. He had a jagged scar across his face from temple to chin on the left side. It completed a very imposing and menacing picture. Ling had never seen him smile, which was a shame because he was also pretty gorgeous so he probably had a nice smile. Unlike Yuhai, he didn’t practice the courtesy of pretending to listen to you after he’d become disinterested. He just walked away. Ling should probably be offended, but he had such an incomparable ass he couldn’t bring himself to mind.
Ling suspected that Lan Fan had hired beautiful retainers because she thought Ling might be distracted enough by that to just listen to them, but she severely underestimated his desire to do whatever the fuck he wanted whenever the fuck he felt like. He was emperor now, it was part of the job description.
The dumbstruck crowd of clan leaders and nobles gaped at him and his trailing retainers, parting as they crossed the room. The throbbing wasn’t subsiding but Ling kept his expression fixed at impassive-cordial as they exited and retreated to his chambers.
“Your Imperial Majesty?” Lan Fan prompted as the chamber door closed and latched behind her. She wasn’t hiding her anxiety which probably meant Ling’s face was draining of colour.
“It’s fine, I think it’s passed,” he said, shrugging out of the first layer of his robes with some haste. Which was a mistake because the flex and jerk of his shoulders drove another pang through his nervous system and he reflexively jerked against it. “Oh, nope, no it’s not, something’s wrong.” The room was swirling and fuzzing at the edges. He couldn’t see Lan Fan but he could hear her say, distantly, “Your Majesty?”
Then he blacked out.
--
The black outs continued to happen semi-regularly after that. Sometimes Ling could sense a spell coming on and he had just enough time to leave the room or signal to Lan Fan before he collapsed into her waiting arms. Other times it came on unexpectedly and he sprawled out on the floor surrounded by a gaggle of confused courtesans exchanging panicked looks between themselves as he insisted he was just overwhelmed by their beauty.
The palace doctor, nor any of her colleagues, could puzzle out what’s happening. It’s not low blood sugar, or asma. It’s not his blood pressure or the onset of seizures. They have no idea what it is. It was a good thing that the entire medical staff were obligated under pain of death not to tell a single soul about the emperor’s health. A mysterious illness would be quite the meal for the gossip mill.
The not-knowing might be more terrifying than the blackouts themselves, it’s tough to be sure. They’re both pretty fucking scary.
Lan Fan won’t let him eat or drink anything she herself doesn’t consume first, for fear that he’s being poisoned. Yahui posits that maybe he’s just sleepy and Lan Fan doesn’t stab her on principle which would be a heartwarming display of personal growth in any other circumstance. Jian doesn’t say anything at all, he actually kind of looks bored every time it happens when he’s in the same room.
Courtiers are beginning to take notice of his regular disappearances. It’s only a matter of time before he drops in front of a crowded room and rumours circulate about his weak constitution. He can imagine exactly what they’ll say: shouldn’t Xing have a strong emperor, someone who can lead, someone who can sculpt and shape this country for future generations? The country was still recovering from the loss of one emperor, which had been so long and drawn out that the heart of the nation couldn’t be made to suffer again so quickly at another leader’s bedside. He should step down and wither away in private, in obscurity, they’ll say.
Ling has started regularly losing himself in antiquated medical texts, trying to avoid admitting to himself that he probably had a tumour.
Yahui offers to rub his neck a lot, which is nice of her even if it’s kind of painful. Presently, she’s jabbed her thumbs into a muscle knot right between his neck and shoulder with pinpoint accuracy and unrelenting pressure.
“You don’t drink enough water,” she said, her voice skewing more bubbly than flirtatious because Lan Fan is within thirty metres and has several knives, “The toxins are making your muscles tense, that’s why it hurts when I massage them.”
“Toxins? You mean... like, poison?”
“Don’t worry, I’m releasing it.” She digs her thumbs in harder and Ling winces. It’s a miracle he doesn’t have bruises after.
“If you release toxins into his bloodstream, wouldn’t that kill him?” Jian asked, deadplanning from where he’s perched unseen in the room’s rafters.
“No, it won’t,” Yahui chirped, unbothered and just as effervescent, “You really should drink more water, Your Majesty.”
They’re in his private chambers, dressing for another meeting where old farts would tell him he was driving the country head first into the ground by -- what? Preventing citizens from creating an untouchable scapegoat caste? Fuck off. They’re lucky he hadn’t brought violent insurrection back with him from Amesteris instead of a genocidal magic trick. Playing their politics all the time was making him wish he had.
Lan Fan emerged from his walk in closet, his final silk robe cradled in her arms. It was one of the prettier ones, with delicate stitch work and a crane in flight embroidered across the back. It was also seven more pounds of fabric he needed to have draped over his body. Let it never be said that he hadn’t suffered for his country.
“If anyone actually tries to assassinate me, I won’t be able to run,” he said petulantly, standing with his arms raised so Lan Fan can drape the garment over him and fasten his sash around the whole monstrosity.
“Perhaps if you trained more often instead, you could,” she replied coldly, though Ling could sense a dull flicker of amusement in her eyes.
The stress was wearing both of them thin. Of all the bodies in the palace, they could only put their trust in one another. They were bound together, not just by duty or honour but by blood. Even that bond was imperfect though and even if there were moments when it felt like she could see directly into his mind (always at the most inopportune time) she couldn’t.
Someone used to be able to. Someone used to occupy the space between his ears. Someone used to be able keep rhythm with his thoughts just as quickly as he had them.
Ling doesn’t think about the homunculus often. It’s painful and sentimental and there often isn’t time for it. But there are moments when thoughts of Greed just happen. Usually when he’s eating something really good. Or luxuriating in the lap of an especially beautiful woman. He can never smother the bone deep, sharp pulse of longing he felt when something locked in the base of his brain shouted he should be here.
Watching his reflection in the mirror as Lan Fan dressed him, he caught sight of his weary face framed with splendid jewelry and a veritable tapestry of silks. He looked older. He’s ashamed of himself for being so damn tired. So damn thankless. Greed would have loved this. Greed would have enjoyed every resplendent second of his reign, even if something dark and unseen were killing him slowly.
He would have laughed and said let it try.
--
Eventually, Ling began to tune into a recurring warning sign that signals an oncoming blackout.
It started as an itch along the shell of his ear. It was warm and it tingled, he always found himself turning towards it before he realised what he’s doing. It was as if someone was calling his name down a hallway but the hallway was in another country and the person calling him was whispering not shouting. He felt it though, the thrum of intent, of meaning being directed at him.
He gave a discrete signal and Lan Fan had him swiftly escorted into a side chamber so he could collapse into her waiting arms.
“Perhaps he should retire,” Jian said as Ling came to, his head laid out in Lan Fan’s lap, “he could appoint a mouthpiece and move to the countryside. The fresh air might do him good.”
“Absolutely not,” Lan Fan said, the thinnest threat of violence laced in her tone, “he will recover.”
“But if he does not--”
“If you keep talking, I’ll make sure they never find your body.” There was an audible click as Jian’s teeth caught against one another, he closed his mouth so quickly.
Silence reigns when Ling opened his eyes and smiled up at his longest, truest friend and she glared down at him like his mysterious fainting is a personal choice he’s making to slight her.
--
The warning sign, the voice, the feeling, whatever it is, it got louder as time went on. ‘Louder’ might not be the best descriptor. It was more like a mounting pressure. The hallway was getting shorter, which was probably a bad sign. It was probably some kind of brain tumour and the ‘pressure’ was actually cell mass expanding against his grey matter. They’ve stopped trying to get answers from doctors and Ling’s abandoned his medical texts. He’s started mentally preparing a last will and testament though he hasn’t committed anything to paper because he can’t stand to think of Lan Fan finding it before he’s gone.
Death might not be so terrible. Perhaps his next incarnation would be something interesting. Perhaps his new soul would meet Fu’s.
He hoped Greed had been reincarnated. He had a soul so surely the universe would see fit to repackage and re-release it on the world. It would be too cruel not to. It would be too cruel if his fire and drive had been so short a burst, never to be seen again. If Ling was the praying kind, he would pray for that -- for Greed, for his essence to live again. If the universe is a just place, he would.
--
Months of near daily blackouts have made Ling tired. So damn tired that he’s forgone today's meetings to try to catch up on rest. Lan Fan wanted to stay behind and keep an eye on him, in case he needed anything, but he insisted she attend in his stead. Jian’s idea wasn’t a bad one, having a mouthpiece to keep an eye on the happenings in the palace and capital. The only fault in the plan was that there was no way Lan Fan would let him outside of a mile radius of her at any given time and there was no one other than her that he trusted to be his eyes and ears.
“Do you need anything, Your Majesty?” Yahui asked from where she was knelt at the side of his futon.
He had been fitfully sleeping on and off all morning but he’s lost his patience for tossing and turning. He sits up and turns toward her, rubbing the grit out of his eyes.
“I could rub your back for you,” she offered, already pushing his robe off his shoulders. He was too groggy and rundown to protest, though he could already imagine the kinds of merciless contortions she was about to put his spine through. He let her lay him out face down on the futon and attempted to disassociate through the pain.
It lasts for about fifteen minutes before he hears it. Whatever it is. Whatever he hears or feels before he passes out. He opens his mouth to warn Yahui, to tell her to get off of him, but that’s not what happens.
Instead he plays passenger while his body flipped him and Yahui around, pinning her to the futon under them. His hand fixed in a fierce grip around her wrist, pushing her palm into the pillow.
“Y-your Majesty?” her voice quavered as she looked up at him and Ling tried to say, I’m so sorry, I don’t know what’s come over me. He tried to let go where he’s crushing her hand in his.
“Oh that’s cute,” said an oddly gritty version of his voice, “playing innocent like I haven’t just caught you red fucking handed. You’re lucky I don’t like fighting women.”
Ling watched in stunned silence as Yahui struggled against the strength of his slowly carbon coating fist. After a moment he realized she wasn’t just struggling, she was actively trying to gouge at his skin. Realization dawned on him.
She’s been poisoning me.
He can see it now, a little wax seal under her fingernail that’s beading some kind of dark oil. Probably some kind of contact-based poison.
“Fucking duh, when’d you fucking tune in, you shitty king.”
Greed?! You’re alive!
“Fuck, were you always this slow? I’m worried about your country, brother.”
If Ling were in charge of his tear ducts, he would be crying.
Greed folded and twisted Yahui, getting her on her stomach and twisting her wrist painfully behind her back. He pinned her down with Ling’s knee and used his free hand to tear at the bedsheets, liberating a strip of cloth that is too finely made to really be used as a make-shift binding but Ling wasn’t about to interject. Greed tied Yahui’s hands behind her back just as Lan Fan and Jian returned to his quarters.
Lan Fan, he’s alive! Ling said to the thoughtscape of his own mind while Greed is behind the wheel. That’ll be annoying to get used to again.
“Greed?” Lan Fan said before Greed said a single word. He grins at her, all teeth.
“Oh good, the useful woman. Glad you kept her around. Come deal with this.” He gestured to Yahui who was struggling against the futon on her belly.
Getting rid of her would be like trying to get rid of my shadow, Ling said to the void at the same moment Lan Fan said, “He’d have to kill me.”
There was some hubbub while Jian and Lan Fan wrestled Yahui up and out of the room. She kicked and spat the whole way, shrieking about Ling’s ‘comeuppance’ and the ‘displacement of honorable clans for the sake of Chang trash’. Once she’d left the room Ling decided to erase her existence from his mind -- no need to hold on to the memory of such absolute human garbage.
He must have been in control of his body again because when he moved to follow through with the impulse so sprawl across his futon, his body went.
“How long have you been alive?” he asked into the open air. Learning to speak only in his mind would be something he would have to relearn, but in private it barely mattered.
Not sure. It was weird. It was like I was coming in and out. I could sense something wasn’t right... like our life was in danger.
It probably shouldn’t have made Ling smile smugly to himself when he called it their life but he did, grinning at the ceiling
I think I had to carbon shield some of your internal organs to keep her from poisoning us.
“Huh... maybe that’s what was making me black out.”
You were blacking out? Yikes, kid, that must have been embarrassing. He felt the accompanying eye more than saw it.
“Shut up,” there’s no bite to it, so damn happy he can’t smother the bubble of laughter that came from his chest.
There was silence and Ling tried to remember what a strange, fascinating feeling it is to have someone in your mind, their consciousness alongside your own. It’s full, but not crowded. It’s companionable. It’s comforting. He probed Greed’s presence with his own and relished in the mental shudder and shake that the intrusion produced in both of them.
Quit pokin’ me, brat. Ling’s body sat up against his own instruction and he didn't resist as Greed took the lead. The transfer of power was easier than it had been in Amestris, like a current moving control from one mind to the other and back again.
“Are you king yet, or what?” Greed pitched his vocal chords so low and rough, it’s still novel to hear the grit in his own voice.
Emperor. Oh, let’s visit the courtesans! They’ll love you.
“Fuck, kid, why didn’t you lead with that?” Gracelessly, Greed hiked his robes up and started towards the door. He put his hand on the knob before he paused, “Wait, you should probably--”
“Let me lead the way, my friend, I have so much to show you.”